Unknowing
by LondonBelow
Summary: Sometimes just getting him to take his AZT is enough of a struggle for an entire day. [rated for language]


This was written for speedrent prompt 108, which was to give one character the traits of another (Roger films and Mark plays guitar, for example)

Disclaimer: I don't own RENT. I'm just playin' with the characters.

"Hey, Mark." Roger sat on the edge of the bed and shook his friend awake. Mark gave a heavy moan and pulled the pillow over his head. "Gotta get up, man," he insisted. Grudgingly, Mark obeyed. He pushed himself up, trying to keep the blankets wrapped around him. "Some dream, huh?"

Mark mumbled before managing a response: "It's too dark to be day."

"And yet, it is," Roger told him. "Time to rise and shine. You know, like in the song: rise and shine and give Rog your glory…" Roger's name fit with coincidental perfection into the tune.

"Your ego…" Mark complained.

Roger grinned. "I'm just too great," he said. "So, looks like snow today. I was thinking we could go down to Central Park. Take the subway." He offered this in the same tone he would offer a child sweets. "It looks like snow. You can film the little kids, little tourist babies from L.A." As he said this, Roger dared not let himself hope. It was a prospect, nothing more. Yet he forced himself to smile and illustrate the option with as much glee as he could muster.

_Yeah, right. Fucking Hollywood brats, like they know shit._ "I don't feel like filming," Mark muttered. Before Roger could say anything, he asked, "You wanna know what I dreamed?"

That was not what Roger wanted. Roger wanted Mark to get out of bed and put on clothes. He wanted Mark to bundle into his old plaid coat and shiver out into the snapping air to find the beauty in things no one else gave a second glance. But this was something, better than the usual mumbled excuses. "Yeah, tell me."

"I dreamed about your girlfriend's cunt."

Roger froze, and Mark felt a tiny bolt of pleasure. _Fuck him, with his false fucking happy exterior. What right of him to be happy? Sure, sure, it's easy for you, Rog. Try to have a little fucking sympathy._ "What…" Roger began, fighting tears, "what happened that night?"

It took a moment for Mark to realize that this was a question. This was not, "What happened that night was a mistake" or "not your fault" or "really horrible". This was Roger baldly asking to know what had happened between Mark and April. This was Roger trying to cope, Roger trying to be a grown-up, Roger trying to hold things together. This was Roger about to cry.

"You were out. April was home. She 'had a cold'," he sneered. It had been the first time, but the implicit extended relationship would hurt Roger, and that was what Mark wanted. "Maureen broke up with me, and I came home… and there's your girlfriend, lying on your bed wearing your Wings T-shirt, and she says, 'Hi, Mark,'" he mocked in his highest falsetto. "And I say, 'Hey.' And she says, 'You look down. Wanna talk about it?' and pats the bed. So I sit down and say, 'Thought you weren't feeling well.' And she says, 'I'm much better.'" By this point Roger's nose was twitching, his eyebrows coming together to form little frowns, but he said nothing. He didn't cry. Mark continued. "I told her Maureen had wanted oral sex and I didn't know how to do it. That isn't why we broke up, but I was drunk. It could've been why. April said I could practice on her all I want. Just popped her legs open and guided me in."

Roger forced himself to swallow the angry words in his mouth. He thrust the white bottle and mug of tea at Mark. "Just take your AZT," he spat, "you miserable excuse for a human being." He waited until Mark had swallowed the pill and given him a venomous, saucy look, then pushed himself off the bed and left the room, struggling not to run, not to cry, not to slam the door.

Collins didn't need to ask after he saw the look on Roger's face. But his eyes asked, anyway, and Roger shook his head. He opened the refrigerator door and examined the contents. Much as Roger would have enjoyed getting drunk off his ass, he had work tonight tending bar and mopping. He pulled out the milk and downed a gulp.

"Rog?" Collins asked.

Roger capped the milk and replaced it. He wiped his mouth onto his sleeve, shut the door and shook his head. "Don't," he said. "It's fine."

"No, it's not."

Collins pulled Roger into a hug. This was never difficult with Roger, who always wanted one but was too shy to ask.

_Roger began calling Collins 'anarchist' long before Collins let the word define him, and because it had been a private, personal secret never told, Collins was so angry and flattered that he said, early enough in the relationship that he thought Roger did not like to be touched, "I'm so pissed, I'm gonna hug you!"_

_"So," Roger had asked, "you're going to hug me… if I call you an anarchist?"_

_"Yes!"_

_"Anarchist!"_

"I'm a bad person," Roger confessed. "I don't deserve hugs."

"Sure you do. Don't let him get you down. You know that what he's going through is tough." Collins could not decide who agreed with. Mark was being awful, but then, Mark had HIV. Of course he was being awful. He was a twenty-something with mortality staring him in the face. Roger was trying his best. He brought Mark his pills, worked to buy them and comforted as best he could.

"I wanted him to die," Roger admitted. "Just the things he said about her…"

Collins shrugged. "You can square with that," he said, "because Mark's gonna die. And you're gonna survive."

Roger nodded. It was a truth he hated facing, but one he accepted. Life dealt him a low hand. He played as best he could. Mark had HIV. Collins had HIV. One day they would die, and Roger would go on. That was his lot, and he struggled to accept it.

"Mark would never do this. He'd be some much better," Roger said, pushing budding tears away from his eyes.

"We'll never know that," Collins said.

"No. We won't."

END!

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